1973 Dodge Charger. "The Oly Express"

Inspiration from the show Burn Notice:

Yep, Bruce Campbell, so you know its legit.

Stupid question: If the body work is included in the purchase price, why is it coming home with you, instead of staying with the body man?

Any thought of a Tremec TKX? Pricey, but it is the nuclear option.

Your builds are always fun. This one promises to be extra spicy.

wheelsmithy (Joe-with-an-L) said:

Inspiration from the show Burn Notice:

Yep, Bruce Campbell, so you know its legit.

Stupid question: If the body work is included in the purchase price, why is it coming home with you, instead of staying with the body man?

Any thought of a Tremec TKX? Pricey, but it is the nuclear option.

Your builds are always fun. This one promises to be extra spicy.

oooooooooh, that's pretty!

No, the body work was "in addition to".  3-5000 euro is an incredibly low amount to pay for what this thing needs, but the ONLY thing Mrs. Hungary gave as a stipulation to this cars purchase was that "not one dime gets taken away from the house to work on this car".  A promise is a promise, and it's not every day I get to drop 10-grand on a rust bucket, so I had to politely decline.  I did tell him that I might be back in a couple years to take him up on that offer, but no sense letting it sit there (on the grass) while we wait for that to happen.

100% looking at the TKX (I think I just read an article in GRM about that beast!).  When the time comes, we'll see what's for sale and where the deals are.  I might try to put the GRM machine to work sourcing parts, and get everything sent over the pond in one big "go".

Ok, we're off to a great start!  The delivery ended up happening around 10pm last Friday.  Of course, by then, Mrs. Hungary and the boys were both fast asleep but I was able to leave work on short notice and help unload.

There's no one riding brakes in this beast right now.  That thing is pointed downhill and in the exact direction of the bedroom where Mrs. Hungary was sleeping 

On the plus side, the house is brick.  On the other plus side, three of us got the car stopped no problem.

Next up was the engine and transmission (OOH!  The engine was delivered with the transmission attached!!!!)  which should have been no problem, but when I put away my cherry picker last time I noticed it was leaking oil all over the floor.  When I brought it out THIS time, I noticed a big hole in things:

I am not 100% sure that that hole is supposed to be there.  Also, I need to figure out how to top the oil back up as it would only lift things "half mast" at best.

But it turns out that "Half Mast" was just enough to BARELY get everything off the ground and we were able to scoot things into the garage:



You guys, even just typing this has me absolutely STOKED.  I really can't tell you how excited I am to have this at my house.  This has been a dream of mine for a solid 5-years, and it's RARE a single car can keep my attention that long.

Good times.

Saturday morning everyone was up early and out to check out the new wheels




Mrs. Hungary is pretty used to my projects by now, and even though they roll into the driveway in worse and worse condition she never seems to even raise an eyebrow.  This time was no different, and I think she actually kind of dug the car!

The kids are excited, of course, but they've seen it before and have been talking about it all week.  The eldest and his best friend say we'll have the fastest car in town!

And then we had a snowball fight:



The car supplied most of the ammo

Christmas came early this year, and the boys and I unwrapped our present:

After we got things unwrapped, the boys assumed the position and made vroom-vroom noises while taking turns as driver and passenger

I tell ya though, that is the SMALLEST air filter I think I've ever SEEN!  My 2.4-liter Toyota 22RE breathes through more filter material that that thing...

Good times.

A little later on, I suck back out to the garage for some quiet time.  I wanted to explore things a bit, and just see what I could see with my new Chrysler stuff.  The only other Chrysler engine I've ever seen was in a Plymouth Fury, and that was a 383.  The only thing I remember about it, was that the distributor was way up and low in the front, and it was mounted at a funny angle.

This one's distributor was in the back.  Although it wasnt mounted into the intake manifold, like I'm used to seeing on GM lumps, I did get a little concerned about a conversation we had back at the shop on friday with the seller:

(Youngest Hungarling and I looking under the hood of that 1971/2 Chevelle:

Seller: (points at engine) "That's the same as the Dodge motor"

Me:  "Nah man, that's a 5.7 liter GM V8.  The Dodge has a 5.3"

(much grunting and nodding follows)

But here I am now, and I'm kind of worried he might have been implying that a GM three-fiddy was coming with this charger, so I did what any of us would do, I checked the firing order!

1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2

For those that don't know, that's the firing order for a Small Block Chebbie, and that had me VERY worried.

Luckily for me, I have the worlds knowledge at my fingertips and was able to use my smartphone to verify that it was also the firing order for a Dodge 318.

Shwew.

I mean, I probably could have just looked at the Chrysler logo cast in the exhaust manifolds but that would have been too easy.

Anyhoo, other points of interest were an Accel ignition coil (meh), and a Carter Carburetor that I thought was a single barrel but actually turned out to be a 2-barrel:

I don't know much about this car (or anything, really), but I know one thing for certain.  No way am I starting this beast up with that tiny air filter and that tiny carburetor.  This poor thing must have had the WORST time trying to breathe!!!

Don't worry little car.  I'll take care of ya.

I've waited a long time to buy a Dodge so I could finally do this:

Well, I flipped it.  But being an aftermarket unit, and not a proper Chrysler component, I don't think it's going to add anymore grunt...

Good times.

Next up was just a bunch of unpacking...  I wanted to get as much crud as I could out of the car and into the garage.  The only really interesting things that happened were when I found only one bucket seat (but two bench seats, and more cushions that look like seats) and finding that the dash had a stock AND an aftermarket oil pressure gauge (I mean, that's +5 horsepower right there!)

Not sure what to make of the FOD in the upper radiator hose...  Rodents maybe?  It probably needs to be re-cored now anyway.  Looks to have taken some damage in shipping

That gas tank has probably half a gallon of liquid in it that REAKS of turpentine...

So obviously somebody has been in work on this thing and stopped for whatever reason.  Not being familiar with floorboard repairs though, I really don't want to call the work "bad", but it's definitely not up to the same level/standards as I saw them doing back at the garage.  The hammered surfaces look less smooth that what I saw them make, and the cuts have a bit of a gap between them and where they're supposed to go...  meh, we'll see.  Maybe they're good and I just don't know it yet because I'm new to the business.

Other than that, I was just super happy I found the driveshaft

Never once did it occur to me that I should have verified its existence before bringing this thing home, but I'm glad it's there.

Good times

What an excellent start to your adventure. I love that your family is involved also. Watching along with great interest!

Oh.  There was more stuff in the trunk.  I have to use a long flathead screwdriver to open it as there's no lock assembly

A fiberglass repair attempt of somesort on the rear or the driver's side wheel well there...

So again I was a bit surprised to see what looked to be low-quality metal work going on...  The patch panel that was installed looked to be tack welded in from underneath, which would have left a recessed area when all was said and done.  Furthermore, the shark fin looking seam didn't really match what was going on with the car either.  I'm wondering if someone maybe attempted repairs before handing it over to the garage I got it from?  Or MAYBE the garage DID attempt to repair the car and then they found something that made them say "oh crap.  That's a gonner"

who knows. 

Here's some shots from underneath the back though:

Good times

jh36 said:

What an excellent start to your adventure. I love that your family is involved also. Watching along with great interest!

Oh yeah!  I drag those poor guys through all my automotive (and non automotive travesties).  Most of the time it just involves us turning tools into guns and chasing each other around the car, but sometimes (like today) we get something done in the process

They're up on the lingo too, so "nitrous" is "giggle gas" and "hood scoops" are "bug catchers".  And speaking of "bug catchers", the one on this car had to come off.  Luckily it wasn't functional:

I think only 4 of those studs had nuts on the ends of them.  All that hood scoop, and such a tiny air filter....

Anyhoo, the Hungarlings and I went at it with a socket and had it off in no time.

But the best (and I mean BEST) part was when we looked underneath and saw that the "bug catcher" had actually caught a bug!

I wish I had got a picture of their reactions, it was a hoot!  Best day in the garage ever
 

My Cougar had that same air cleaner on it when I bought it.  It's not in place now.  
Follow along with Loosecannons threads on his early Camaro repair as well as his early Suburban repair.  Nohome does some great repair work as well.  Very inspiring work and it make me very thankful my old car wasn't rusty!

In reply to wawazat :

Awesome!  I'll have to peek in on Loosecannon's threads!  I've heard some pretty amazing things about Nohome's abilities, but embarrassing enough I haven't read any of his threads yet either.  Might be a good time to go about fixing that as well.

Thanks!

Ok first things first.  In the removal process of the bug catcher, the boys and I saw something near the hood latch that caught our attention:

We put our heads together and were able to discern that this was the hood release linkage!

We got things hooked up...

And many operational checkouts followed:

Baby steps

Ok.  Enough funny business.  Time to work.

There were still a few things I wanted to sort with the car before we got into any heavy lifting.  The first was the passenger door and the fact that it wouldnt open from the outside...  I thought that if we took the door card off, we could look in there and see what was going on.  The youngest helped me with that:

Got the door cards off, no problem.  But I couldnt see what was wrong with the guts.  When you move the exterior handle, there is a lever that moves inside but it doesn't look like it does anything.  Playing with the locks doesn't change anything about the discrepancy either.

No big deal.  I have a nother door, and no windshield so plenty of ingress options.

The driver's side door was giving me issues as well.  When you try to open it, it hits the fender:

Normally this would scream "Accident Damage!!!!" but this is one area I actually paid attention to (i know... I know...).  Every other panel before or after that fender lines up so I put it in the "mounting issue" bin.  My suspicions were verified when I removed the fender for inspection.  A total of three bolts held that in place which had allowed to sag enough to interfere with the door clearance.

I also figured out why that linkage was disconnected in that last post.  That little rod was the only thing holding the front bumper and grill assembly on after that fender was pulled off!

So how do things look?  Well, here's the fender:

That side's not too bad.  Missing light assemblies (on the sides and on the tops) were ordered today, and I'll meet up with my buddy Gergo at his hardware store about sourcing the bolts and nut-clips to re-mount this beast (I could order online, but the total was over $300 to get it out here in the middle of nowhere.

The other side was a bit worse.  Here's the quick and dirty:

(hopefully this works.  It's a new format for me to try)

(that looks ok to me on my computer at least, if it sucks on mobile I'll try some thing else)


Also, there's some sort of missing bolt that's holding some sort of thingy McDoodle on:
 

Probably nothing. but worth fixing up correctly.

I'm hoping to leave the other fender on the car, or at least in tact, while I work on this side.  It definitely looks to be the worse of the two so it should be interesting.

Good times

The area under the fender looked something like this:

 

I'm not gonna lie, those areas near the windshield and underneath the door (leading edge of the rocker panel).... I have no idea how I'm going to hit those...  One step at a time though, that's for much later.  I think for now, I'm going to focus the next few days on cleaning up the crap I've unloaded, I'll do a few finishing touches to my Toyota, and then I'll start fresh on that fender after I've had a bit of time to think on how best to attack it.

If all goes well there, then I'll start on the area underneath and wont worry about it until then.

On the up side, having the fender off allows my door to open!

I think that green thing might actually be the speedo cable coming in from the transmission side.  That's a pretty creative way to hold it up and out of the way

Good times

Your new format looks great to me. Enjoying following along.

Green thing is the speedometer cable for sure.  

What is the availability of SAE hardware local to you?  Those fender fasteners aka u clips, u nuts, or nut clips are pretty commonly used on my car and I would think yours as well looking at your pictures.  Maybe an order for a bulk purchase would make sense?  

Oh man, you are a brave soul. 

Darn it.  One more thing:

I think that might be the K-Member that is completely rotted away.  If the fender is my first task, and the area under the fender is after, then this falls in the "much later later" bin.  The reason I bring it up now is because it opens up options (all of which cost money, which we've already discussed):

A replacement smallblock k-member looks to be aroudn $800+ used but would allow me to bolt everything up the way I have it now.

A big block k-member would allow me to stuff a fat bastard in there now, but would require me to source said big-block, transmission, and modify the driveshaft, fuel system, and exhaust.  However, this option COULD save me money later as I wouldnt drive the car with that anemic carb/manifold combo so I would never feel the need to modify said carb/manifold combo...

Here's the K-member differences for future reference:
 

Famous last words:  There doesnt seem to be much to it...

Good times.

obsolete said:

Your new format looks great to me. Enjoying following along.

awesome!  I'll try to keep it that way then.  It helps me to keep track of things a little better, I thought it might translate to posting here as well too.

wawazat said:

Green thing is the speedometer cable for sure.  

What is the availability of SAE hardware local to you?  Those fender fasteners aka u clips, u nuts, or nut clips are pretty commonly used on my car and I would think yours as well looking at your pictures.  Maybe an order for a bulk purchase would make sense?  

Not quite sure yet.  That's what I'm going to meet with Gergo to discuss (he's a Hungarian who speaks fluent English.  He opened a hardware store in town about 10 years ago and is my go-to guy for such things).  From e-bay's standpoint it looks terrible though:

That's just the hardware for 2-doors and 2-fenders.  Nothing fancy, and no funny business on my end...

At those rates, this thing will take me the next decade just to get the hardware together!

Good times.

Javelin (Forum Supporter) said:

Oh man, you are a brave soul. 

Brave or stupid has yet to be determined.  I am determined though

Bill-look at AMD, AutoMetalDirect, for fasteners.  I found this for an earlier B body kit.  I've used their stuff and it's good.  
Mopar B body fasteners

Cool car.  I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with it.  I messed around with Mopars a lot in the '80s but mostly '68 - '70 B bodies.

I think you'll find that the K fmember is the same for small and big block cars.  It's the Slant Six that needs something different.

When you're doing floor repairs keep in mind that the four speed cars need hump on the driveshaft tunnel to accomodate the shifter mechanism.  If you use something other than the A883 then you may not need the hump.